Brenda’s Blog – July 30, 2019
“No wonder you can’t download that app. You have used up all your memory. Let’s see – hmmmm you have texts going back to 2015. Don’t you ever delete them? And pictures – you have thousands. You need to go home and start cleaning all this up.”
The young woman was kind, but she also looked at me like a troglodyte who just rolled out of the cave. I honestly didn’t know to delete text messages. And yes, I knew there were hundreds of unwanted pictures which “someday” I was going to erase.
“You don’t want to buy a new phone and transfer all that. Come back when you have cleaned it up.”
Shamed, but thankful, I walked out of the store. Have you ever tried to delete 4 years of text messages? It is not only tiring, but totally unrewarding. I know I could clean it with one fell swoop by a single “delete all,” but it is like cleaning out a drawer, or a closet – throw it all away and absolutely you will eliminate the very thing you need someday, right?
This became a “that’ll preach” for me. I started thinking about my gratitude for my Savior. When I was definitely piled up with years of undeleted mess, He gave His life in obedience to the Father who planned before time to save me from my sin. At Calvary He did delete all. Jesus paid it all.
And our great triune God promised me a new life without demanding I clean up the current one. The Bible doesn’t tell me to get rid of the junk and then come to Him – no, the Bible says there is no way I could ever get it together in order to be acceptable enough. He came to me because there was nothing I could do on my own.
My plan is to get the new phone on Friday. Between now and then I am going to drive myself crazy pushing delete, but then every once in a while I will stop and say thanks to God for reminding I am His – junk and all!